This Blog Post is the gospel excerpt of Week 5 of the Lenten Bible Study I'm writing for Good News Adult Sunday School Class at Ashford United Methodist Church. We will study this lesson together on April 10, 2011. If you would like to have the entire 5-day Bible Study, for your own study or for a small group, which integrates all four lectionary passages see the sidebar E-Blast for a link to my email address. Send me an email and I'll send you a full printer-friendly PDF File as an attachment each week of Lent. Thanks!
This week we are called to live a “resurrected” life. The Harper Collins Bible Dictionary defines resurrection as “a rising to life from death.” (926) The concept of resurrection emerged from Jewish apocalyptic literature such as the book of Ezekiel. (See Ezekiel 37:1-14) Apocalyptic literature focuses on “end times” and contains visions that are often mysterious and strange to us today.
Ancient peoples did not think of resurrection as life after death in the individualistic way modern people do but rather they concentrated on “a complete transformation of the human being” in this life. They believed that at the end of time “God would raise all of the elect” together. As we journey continue to walk the path to Easter Morning, we see how that theological belief articulated in Ezekiel begins to be challenged, deepened, and changed through the journey of the Hebrew community and the life of Christ found in the Gospels.
Read John 11:1-45 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them." After saying this, he told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him." The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right." Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world." When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
Remember the bickering sisters named Mary and Martha … (You can read their story in Luke 10:38-42)
Jesus negotiated their sibling rivalry once upon a time with a balance of reprimand and grace. Today there is no sibling rivalry for we can see that their relationship has deepened. They have grown to respect one another in their different ways of being. As we sit with Mary and Martha in their grief, I invite you to think of a time when you experienced this kind of grief. Sit with those feelings for a moment and allow them to illuminate this passage. Do you approach grief in the rational way that Martha does or in the deeply felt way of Mary?
True to their personalities, when Martha heard Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him and Mary waited for him at home. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” As you look at the way Martha questions Jesus and the way Jesus responds to Martha in her grief, what do you notice? Where does her understanding of resurrection come from? What does Martha need at this time and how does Jesus reach out to her?
See the gentle way Martha comes to Mary and how Jesus waits for her to come to him. See how others follow her … See the gentle way she falls at his feet weeping, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” As you look at the way Mary questions Jesus and the way Jesus responds to Mary in her grief, what do you notice? What does Mary need at this time and how does Jesus reach out to her? How does Jesus reach out to each of us?
These sisters say the same thing to Jesus, but they say it in different ways to him, and they need different responses. Jesus shows a great depth of knowledge of them. How well does Jesus know you? Are you willing to be known even more by God?
As you consider the relationship between Jesus and these two sisters, how are you like Martha? How are you like Mary?
He (Jesus) was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved … Jesus began to weep … Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. What does the way Jesus responds to the death of Lazarus tell us about God? What do we learn from Mary and Martha about human beings? What do we learn from this passage about the relationship between God and us?
He (Jesus) cried with a loud voice "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." As we remember that resurrection is “a rising to life from death” we are filled with wonder at this sign that Jesus performed.
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As we have been making our labyrinth journey through Lent, we have begun to hear the call of Easter … New Life … Resurrection! And yet there is still much of the path left before us. We have been challenged this week to notice those places in our souls and our lives where we despair and face death. What are the things that bind you to a “dead” life? What more is left for you to release so that you are ready to receive “new life” once again and again and again! Yet even as we despair, have we not been comforted with the realization that Jesus meets us where we are, thinks with us, weeps with us and waits with us? What are the remnants of “death, the bits and pieces of an old way of thinking or being that Jesus is asking you to let go of?” Where is God calling you to embrace Spirit and “come out” of the tomb? How is God calling you to live a resurrected life … a life of freedom … right now, today?
How does God call you to step out on the path with specific actions?
As we continue this week leading up to Palm Sunday, we continue to breathe deeply as we hold death and life in greater depth and tension … dear friend, where are you on the great labyrinth of life? Are you standing on the edges, longing to enter? Are you in a time of releasing? receiving? responding? Have you wandered out … wondering … questioning … have you found a labyrinth to walk and meditate with your questions?
You know … God awaits!
You know … God awaits!
Perhaps the “call to live a resurrected life” resonates with you but perhaps it doesn’t. If not, how have you been called by God this week? How are you being called to live and breathe more deeply within God’s indwelling Spirit?
Read Psalm 130 as a Prayerful amen to your study …
Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD.
Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in your word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with God is great power to redeem.
It is God who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.
If music is a pathway to God for you, listen to this youtube video of More than the Watchmen by Rebecca St James …
Remember ... If you would like to receive the full 5-day printer-friendly PDF version with all 4 lectionary readings integrated, see the Email Blast sidebar for email link. Email me and I'll put you on my weekly distribution list. Thanks!
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